


dying to breathe in these abundant skies

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Football | Soccer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6764938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy is the athletic trainer for Clarke's college soccer team. She gets injured all the time and is all like "I'm fine, don't worry about me" but Bellamy sees right through it.</p><p>Or: Three times Clarke Griffin said she was fine but Bellamy knew she wasn’t.<br/>And one time it was the other way around.</p><p>*</p><p>Now with part 2:</p><p>Three times that Clarke Griffin called Bellamy Blake an asshole. </p><p>And one time it was the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the lovely [maywemeetbellarke](http://maywemeetbellarke.tumblr.com) who sent in this prompt. I hope you like it! :)
> 
> Word 'asshole' was used five times in this fic. That's a fun thing to know. Also, bickering Bellarke who actually care about each other. That's what you can expect. 
> 
> The title is from Switchfoot - Learning to Breathe.
> 
> Enjoy!

i.

Rain doesn’t stop pouring on the day of Jake Griffin’s funeral and Clarke Griffin doesn’t stop running.

Wide laps, one foot in front of the other, clenching her fists as her hair brushes her skin. Every inch of her body is on fire, muscles screaming in agony, and whenever she feels a pang in her chest, she just goes faster.

Her dad used to say that she pushes herself too hard. He always said it like it was a bad thing but it’s really, really not. It’s the only thing keeping her alive when they’re placing his body in the cold ground four hundred miles to the east from her college.

“Hey, Princess!”

The name reverberates in her head, in her hollow bones. She’s running to run away from that emptiness because it’s static, it’s not even calm. Just fuzzy nothingness.

Bellamy keeps calling for her, _Princess_ turns into _Griffin_ into _Clarke_ , but she doesn’t stop. After a while, he catches up with her, messy curls made messier by rain and wind hitting his face. It’s a very, very cold day for April.

“Clarke, hey.” He brushes her forearm with his palm, warm and solid despite the rain. She doesn’t look at him because she guesses that, at least today, of all days, she doesn’t have to tolerate Bellamy Blake’s shit. “Clarke, what are you doing?”

“Running.”

Her eyes flick to him when she hears him snort and he looks amused. “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Leave me alone.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I do that.” One foot in front of the other, grass brushing her ankles. The field is where she knows how to just _be_. The field is what she’s got. “Come on, Clarke, just stop running for a second.”

A beat of silence, perturbed only by the sound of their footfalls. And then – “You’ll screw up your joints if you keep running.”

Of course Bellamy Blake, the athletic trainer for Clarke’s team, knows how to make her stop. If she cares about one thing, it’s her body. She needs it for soccer, to feel more useful. Feel better, too, but that’s impossible. The static inside her chest is eating away at everything.

She forces herself to look at him, averts her gaze when she meets the raw sympathy in his eyes. It’s not even pity and that’s what pisses her off. He doesn’t get to be nice today.

“I heard about your dad,” he says. She’s aware of the car accident, of her mother calling in the middle of the night to tell her that Jake isn’t going to make it, but Bellamy saying it makes it feel more real. Her fingers bunch into fists again. “I’m sorry doesn’t cut it. It’s fucking horrible.”

“Thank you,” she replies in a practiced voice. The downward curve of Bellamy’s mouth threatens to expose her cover.

“Let me know if I can help. You can take days off practice, too, of course – “

“No. Let me play.”

Bellamy blinks at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m fine, don’t worry.”

For a second, she thinks he might argue with her. That’s what they’re good at, that’s what would make her feel a little less empty.

But he doesn’t. He just nods, says, “Alright, then.” and she starts running.

Clarke doesn’t think she ever stops.

 

ii.

Her knee hurts like a bitch but she pushes away Harper, who’s trying to help her. Her jersey sticks to her skin in the wet heat of the day and she can almost hear Echo Isley gloating.

“Fucking – “

She’s hopping over to the bench, blowing away stray strands of hair falling into her face, when she feels another set of hands around her waist. When she looks up, ready to tell them to fuck off, she meets Bellamy Blake’s concerned gaze.

“How’s your knee?” he asks, trying to support her, but Clarke doesn’t let him.

“It’s fine, don’t worry. Nothing’s broken, I just have to walk it off.”

He raises his eyebrows instantly, letting out a bright laugh she’s not used to hearing from him during matches. “Let me be the judge of that.”

They always fight about this, too. She tells him that he hovers and that she’ll be fine, and he just calmly replies that if there’s blood, he’s obligated to check.

Fucking mother hen.

Clarke rolls her eyes and leans her weight on him as they make their way over to the bench. Kane raises his eyebrows in question and Clarke just waves her hand, signaling that she’ll be fine. Their actual trainer isn’t as bad as Bellamy.

He makes her sit down and shut up as he props her leg in his lap and checks the swelling around her kneecap. After carefully poking and prodding it with his finger, he sighs, shakes his head and looks at her with an expression of complete exasperation.

So, just default Bellamy, really.

“Will I live, doc?” she teases, knowing that she will. If Bellamy doesn’t frown, it’s good. When he does, though – then shit’s really hit the fan. She’s seen the frown on his face when inspecting the players’ injuries, once or twice when he was inspecting hers. That’s bad.

Bellamy exasperated is just fine.

“You know you will, pre-med.”

She pokes him with her bright pink cleat. “Asshole.”

Bellamy retorts by ruffling her hair, making her scowl. “Smartass.”

He gets her an ice pack and they stop talking to watch Octavia get into position for a free kick. Grinning widely, she feints in the run-up, making Lincoln Woods dive in to his right while the ball ends up in the net to his left. The crowd erupts in cheers and so do Clarke and Bellamy.

Octavia flashes them a thumbs-up, joining the rest of the team for a hug, and when the euphoria’s died down, Clarke hears Bellamy exhale, a small happy smile playing on his face.

“Your sister is great,” Clarke says, pressing the icepack to the swelling so hard she winces. It’ll be fine but she’ll be limping for the rest of the week. It’s not a hardship, though – what she likes most about soccer, except for winning and team spirit, are the bruises, the battle scars, the nice kind of ache long practices leave in her muscles.

Bellamy says that she’s a masochist and she shrugs because he’s not wrong.

“Yeah, she is. A little too cocky, though.”

Another poke to his thigh with her cleat. She should probably get her legs out of his lap but he’s got hands absent-mindedly running down her calves and she’s too cozy.

“It’s a Blake family trait, then.”

“Must be.”

Harper scores the third goal of the match, the crowd cheering loudly for Ark U Astronauts. Clarke’s on top of the world despite her aching knee and the rest of the team comes over, everyone vibrating with excitement as the Grounders are defeated 3:1.

Octavia makes a point of flipping the bird at Lincoln Woods at the parking lot, making Bellamy groan. “Do you have to?”

“What?” Octavia defends, raising her arms up instantly. “I didn’t do anything! Did you see something, Clarke?”

Clarke shakes her head, biting into her lower lip to keep a grin from breaking on her face. “Absolutely nothing. You might need to check out your eyesight, Bellamy. Probably start saving up for a retirement home. The usual.”

She’s not really sure when they started mercilessly teasing each other but somehow it’s spiraled into Clarke calling him an old fart despite the fact that he’s only five years older than her, being twenty-five to her twenty, and Bellamy never shutting up about Clarke’s tendency to have the last word.

This time, he just rolls his eyes, getting his bag up from the ground and slinging it over his shoulder. “See you at home, O. You girls have fun, but be responsible.” He pauses for a second before scrunching up his nose and casting them a pleading look. “Don’t mix tequila and vodka again. Please.”

“Wait, you’re not going?” Clarke asks.

The team has this thing where they all go for burgers and waffles in a diner down the road to celebrate. Or mope. Whichever happens on a given day. And Bellamy usually accompanies them, providing them with snarky comments and a responsible adult. 

It’s Octavia who replies as Bellamy ducks his head and runs a hand through his hair, a nervous tell she’s gotten to know in the last two years. “Bell’s got a hot date so he’s suddenly too cool to hang out with Astronauts.”

“You aren’t _actual_ astronauts, O,” he reminds her gently and gets a punch in the shoulder for his effort.

Clarke watches them bicker, Octavia finally getting Bellamy into a headlock as the rest of the team slowly trickles out of the locker room. But she can’t chase away the nagging feeling of caring about whether he has a date, which. She shouldn’t care. This is Bellamy. For fuck’s sake, he’s held her hair when she threw up after mixing tequila with vodka.

It’s not –

He’s her athletic trainer, Octavia’s brother, and a fucking mother hen. Not a girl or a guy she’d be interested in dating.

So Clarke lets the feeling slide, perks up when Raven high-fives her, and they pile into Kane’s minivan, restless chatter filling the inside of the car, all excitement and the smell of grass and victory.

They’re invincible today, Raven’s brace clinking against Clarke’s ice pack, a reminder that you can get knocked down – the trick is in getting back up again, Octavia’s long pink fingernails clicking against the screen of her phone as she texts Lincoln (“Woods, of all people? You just flipped him off, O!” Clarke reminds her, meeting her friend’s unimpressed stare. “So what?”) and Kane laughing incredulously as he steers the car towards the diner.

Inside, each one of them orders at least three mega-sized burgers and even bigger chocolate milkshakes, Harper pokes Clarke’s knee with a French fry and Octavia dances with Raven to _I love rock and roll_ playing on the jukebox. It’s her slightly crazy team, but Clarke is still missing something. It’s not until she sees Octavia’s phone light up with a new text from Bellamy that she realizes what.

 

iii.

Bellamy opens the door wearing just a pair of ratty sweatpants, his hair a mess, glasses perched crookedly on top of his nose. She’s obviously woken him up and Clarke offers him a sheepish smile, waving with the high heels she’s carrying in her right hand.

“Hi, I need butterfly bandages,” she says in lieu of apology and Bellamy steps aside, still looking at her like she’s a purple flying pig and he’s been living a very sheltered life.

Well, it’s not like she can blame him. It’s two am, she’s got a bruise the size of Alaska on her right cheek, a scrape right under it, her lip is split and she needs the bandage for her knuckles.

Bellamy deadpans, “What the _fuck_?”

“Life’s weird,” Clarke shoots back, poking her head through what she knows to be the doorway to his and O’s kitchen. It’s overflowing with mugs and books. “Where do you keep them? In the kitchen or in the bathroom?”

“Wait up,” he says, shaking his head and blinking erratically like he’s been dreaming. “What the hell happened to you?”

He’s in her face in a second, close enough for Clarke to count every freckle on his cheeks. Sure, the expanse of tan skin with rippling muscles underneath is unnerving, too, but it’s the freckles that make her throat go dry.

His fingers are feather light when he brushes them across the bruise on her cheek and Clarke bites into her lower lip to stop herself from wincing. “Who did this to you?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” she replies, her voice too high. “Just a bar brawl.”

“Just a – “ She turns away, prepared to start searching for the med kit he definitely has in the apartment, but he grabs her elbow and spins her back to face him. “This is not just a bar brawl. I’m calling the cops.”

“You’re not calling – ugh,” she sighs, dropping her head into her hands. “It _was_ a bar brawl. I just don’t take too well to random guys groping me, okay? His friends got pissed, my friends got pissed, I’m fine. Honestly, you should see the other guy.”

He doesn’t look impressed but settles for just rolling his eyes, almost fond, as he takes her hand and inspects her knuckles. They’re scraped and full of cuts but he still chuckles. “You can pack a nice punch, huh?”

“You know what they say - girls just wanna have fun. And not get killed.”

“Yeah, okay.” Another eye roll, his code for _You’re an asshole but I like you_. “Come with me. O’s with Lincoln tonight but I guess you know that.”

Clarke grins in the face of his misery, trailing after him into the bathroom. “I sure do. She called him a loser and then asked him out, he was absolutely _smitten_.”

Bellamy flashes her a rueful smile, instructing her to sit on the bathtub as he gets the med kit out. When he does, he kneels in front of her, drawing a finger under her chin to inspect the cuts.

“I just need my knuckles fixed, I’m fine.”

“Who’s the licensed health care professional here?”

Clarke rolls her eyes, mimicking his voice. “Bellamy Blake.”

“That’s right.”

For the next few minutes, he doesn’t speak at all, just hums lightly as he disinfects the cuts on her face, sticking band aids on them when needed. His eyes flick to hers every now and then but he’s perfectly professional.

That’s a problem, too.

He’s perfect at what he does, caring and skilled. He’s also been with Astronauts for four years now, longer than Clarke’s played for them, and she’s pretty sure she’d be breaking a rule if she asked him out. It wouldn’t make any sense because it’s one of those friendships bound to stay in their proper little square, best friend’s brother, athletic trainer. It’s her fault that she’ll sometimes prop her feet in his lap when he’s told her to take a break from practice as to not mess up her knee. And it’s his fault that he just rolls his eyes fondly and runs his hands across her calves, acting like there’s nothing wrong with that.

She sees it now, too, in the dim, flickering light of the Blakes’ little apartment. She’s been here so many times but this is the first time she’s actually alone with a half-naked Bellamy. He’s different in this light, a crease appearing between his eyebrows at the sight of her wounds, left hand gently placed on top of her bare thigh. Just for balance.

“There,” he says finally, tapping a finger against her temple lightly. “Won’t be posing for Vogue any time soon, but it’ll do.”

Clarke mock-pouts, voice turning to sugary sweet. “Oh no, and what about Vanity Fair? Will they have me at least?”

“’Fraid not. Your modeling career will have to wait.” He can’t help a smile but she sees him trying to water it down. He fails.

“Oh, Mr. Doctor, however will I survive?”

“I think you’ll manage,” he replies, tapping her thigh with the hand that’s stayed there. It fits perfectly and Clarke worries her lower lip. It’s all too weird and Bellamy must notice because he steps away, polite at all times (except for when he’s an asshole).

The moment – one of those long-drawn ones, electricity crackling between them, teeth biting into lips and half-spoken words on tongues – dissipates when Bellamy clears his throat.

“Now let’s see your hands.”

By the time he’s bandaged them, Clarke can’t stifle a yawn. Bellamy washes his hands, takes one look at her – mini dress and bare feet, ready for a night out dancing but for a bar brawl, too – and asks, “Do you want to sleep here?”

“Like, in the tub? I mean, sure, I guess I totally could, but – “

“I meant the bed. We do have those. Octavia’s not here and I don’t think she’d mind.”

Clarke shrugs. “If I’m not bothering you.”

His responding smile is all pearly white teeth, this late hour turning him softer underneath the yellow light, and she’d really, really like to kiss him. “You’re never bothering me.”

He gets her a shirt to sleep in and lingers in the doorway after he’s given her privacy to change.

“If you need anything, just shout, I’m in the room next door. There’s Advil and water in the kitchen, also – “

“Bellamy, you’re rambling,” she points out gently. “I’ll be fine.”

“Right.” A curt nod, small smile hidden as he ducks his head. Eager eyes when he looks up again. “You’re sure you don’t need anything else?”

Her mind is still buzzing with this night’s events but every muscle in her body is tired now that adrenaline of the fight has washed off. She’s tired without being able to sleep, she knows the taste of this.

So she asks, voice barely louder than a whisper, heart beating wildly, “Can you stay?”

“Stay?”

She hums in confirmation and sees emotions rushing across his face before they’re replaced with a calm and controlled mask.

“Sure, okay. Scoot.”

He lies next to her on top of the covers, planes of his chest rising as he breathes in and turns his head to look at her. “Should I talk or should I stay quiet?”

Clarke curls up under the covers, sort of flips over to come closer to him. There’s still inches of cotton between them but this is better. Keeping her in check.

“Talk, please. My mind is too fast.”

“That’s what you get for getting into bar fights,” he teases, but it’s like the tension between them breaks and Clarke lets out a breathless laugh as he tucks her into his side.

They shouldn’t be doing this but it feels good, Bellamy threading his fingers through her hair, playing with the ends of it, talking about nothing and everything.

Bellamy talks and Clarke listens, humming when she agrees with him and groaning when he says something along the lines of _these kids should just get out of my fucking yard_. It amuses him to no end and by the time she’s feeling her eyelids drooping, Bellamy is looking at her with an impossibly soft gaze that warms her down to her toes.

“You’re so weird, Clarke.”

“Mm. Lovely, too,” she adds.

His smile isn’t a smile. It isn’t even a grin. It’s a full-on beam. “Yeah. That, too.”

 

\+ i.

“So, let me get this straight – you told Octavia, your stubborn, twenty year-old sister, that she should quote unquote stop dating Lincoln and focus on her studies?”

Clarke is looking at him like she’s not sure whether to start laughing or crying and Bellamy nods. At that, she bursts out laughing, folding forward and nearly hitting the bench with her head.

It takes her a moment or two to calm down, having completely dissolved into fits of laughter, and when she does, her eyes are full of tears. “Tell me just one thing, just one – what the hell is wrong with you?”

Bellamy huffs, leaning back and staring at the wide, empty field stretching in front of them. The sky has turned a light shade of purple, everything feeling that particular summer kind of washed out. Clarke’s hair, though, it gleams like gold next to him. She looks like the only real thing in the world.

“I know I shouldn’t have said that, but I didn’t expect her to pack her bags and move in with you.”

Clarke swats at her eyes, fingers glistening with her tears. “She’ll always have a home with me. And besides, that was incredibly patriarchal of you and I didn’t peg you for an asshole, Bellamy.”

In Clarke’s mouth, his name sounds like bells and polished stones. Nothing like him. If Bellamy is anything, it’s the sound of bones crunching and the tears that come after fucking up good things you’ve managed to spare.

“I know, I just – “ he runs his hands through his hair, finds it sticky with sweat. It took him an hour of playing one on one with Clarke to actually sit down and tell her what’s bothering him.

(“Bellamy,” she said when she saw him lying in the middle of the field. No one was supposed to be there after hours. He was, though, and Clarke was studying him with too much worry in her eyes. He was going to hurt her, too. That’s what he does. “Bell, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Red-rimmed eyes and a hoarse voice. She was not fooled.

She smiled wryly at him, bright pink cleats on her feet. “I thought that was supposed to be _my_ line.”)

“I don’t want her to screw this up for herself over a guy. That’s exactly what Mom did and Octavia used to say that she’ll never be like her.”

“Octavia is not like your mom, Bellamy,” Clarke reminds him. She doesn’t even do it with pity in her voice. There’s just sympathy that breaks him in half. “She’s better and smarter than that. She was too loved to do that.”

Bellamy raises his eyebrows at her and Clarke smiles at him like he doesn’t understand anything at all.

“Don’t you get it? Your mom didn’t have a choice, as far as I could tell. She didn’t have anyone to catch her if she stumbles. Octavia will always have you. Well,” she worries her lip, “me, too. She’ll always have me. But it’s you who matters the most. She was loved, in spite of your mom being shitty. She was loved because she had _you_.”

It might be a trick of the light but there are tears in her eyes again, the nostalgic kind, the kind that comes with remembering all the good things you’ve gotten. Bellamy knows all about those and he reaches for her hands instantly, lacing their fingers together.

Clarke shakes her head but squeezes his hand, looking up with a revelation in her eyes. “Can’t you see that? It’s why she’ll forgive you when you apologize. Why you’ll forgive her for saying that you’re dead to her. You guys love each other. And yeah, maybe she didn’t have the newest phone or the trendiest clothes growing up, but. She had you. That’s why she’s amazing today and not a basket case.”

“I’m really not all that, Clarke.”

She snorts, disentangling her left hand to swat at her tears again. He’s not sure whether he should be honored that the unbreakable Clarke Griffin is crying in front of him but he’s cried in front of her, too, and it probably made them even.

Except that he would never be even with Clarke. Not when she was strange and terrible and lovely and absolutely fucking incredible.

“You’re a fucking decent person, Blake, face it already.” She stares him down with that steely gaze of hers that had refs cowering in terror and Bellamy chuckles. “Ugh, why am I the one crying here? You’re – ugh. I hate you.”

This time he laughs, shifting on the bench to drape an arm around her shoulders and tuck her into his side. They’ve been hanging out a lot since the night he patched her up after a bar fight. Too much, her fingers sliding too easily into his hair under pretense of teasing him for how disheveled it was. Too much, Bellamy’s hand fitting on her waist like it was meant to be there.

At the end of the day, it’s just Clarke looking at him – half-sad, half-pissed. Your garden variety Clarke.

“You want a milkshake?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows at her. Clarke rolls her eyes, swats at his chest, but nods in the end.

“I think you owe me at least that.”

While she’s in the bathroom of the diner, he calls Octavia. It’s weird not to talk to her, she’s all that he’s got. It takes him a while but he grovels, tells her how he’s felt and why he said what he said and she understands too quickly.

“Oh, Bell,” she sighs. “You’re nuts. Yeah, I care about Lincoln but I’m not going to be like _Mom_.”

She says ‘Mom’ in a special tone of voice, like it’s both a blessing and a curse. Her death did weigh down on them, but. In a way, it was like being free of coming home worrying whether she was going to be dancing along to the radio or facing closed doors because one of her boyfriends was over.

They always could rely only on each other. No one else.

“I know, O. Clarke helped me understand that.”

“Oh, is Clarke there?” she coos, making him roll his eyes instantly. These girls are going to make his eyes fucking fall out one of these days. “What did _Clarkey_ say?”

“That I’m an asshole who loves you.”

Octavia laughs. “Yeah, that’s about right.” A beat of silence and then, “You know that she likes you too?”

Bellamy tries to ignore how his stomach plummets at that, heart flips, makes him feel like he’s grounded and flying at the same time. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Go get her, big brother.”

“We’re getting milkshakes at the Dropship.”

“You’re well on your way to getting her, then.”

With that and promise of coming back home tonight, she hangs up, and Clarke slides into the seat across from him, propping her chin on her palm.

“Was that O?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

She smirks at him. “I take it that my advice helped?”

“It did.”

She pumps her fist, laughing when the waitress brings her the world’s biggest chocolate milkshake, five inches of foam alone. Bellamy is never going to understand what is it with her and these milkshakes.

“That – “

Clarke stops making heart eyes at it to point her index finger at him, gaze threatening. “I swear to God, if you say that’s not healthy for me, I will kick your ass.”

“I was just going to say that it looks good.”

She eyes him warily for a second or two and then shrugs, commenting, “We can’t all survive on kale smoothies.”

“Jesus, Griffin, shut up and drink your damn milkshake.”

When she wraps her lips around the straw, the slurping sounds she makes out of protest are almost obscene, half of the diner turning around to look at them.

If Bellamy wasn’t so amused, he’d be hiding under the table in shame right about now. But he is, because she pointedly raises her eyebrows and starts getting louder until he snatches the glass away from her, unable to keep a smile from his face.

“Okay, that’s enough, you’ll get brain freeze.”

“I knew you’d be a spoilsport even on a date. I just _knew it_.”

Bellamy grins at her. “So this is a date?”

Clarke doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shrug, doesn’t get shy. She just grins this huge, shit-eating grin and says, “Well, it will be when you get a milkshake, too.”

Two hours later, they stumble through the diner’s door with milk moustaches above their mouths and hands clasped together. Clarke’s bright pink cleats are hanging by their laces around her neck and she’s laughing at his impression of a Very Serious Marcus Kane.

“He does,” she admits, wiping away the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. Third time’s the charm. “He really does get like that. But you’re even better, you get this crease between your brows,” this she chooses to imitate as frowning, “and your voice gets all raspy. _Get off the field, ya little punks! Pay the rent and come talk to_ – “

She never gets to finish her sentence, flailing her arms around, animated as she mimics him as she is with everything else she does, and it’s so fucking incredible – pink neon of the sign above them spilling across her hair, eyes bright like someone’s struck a match behind them, everything bright and soft and –

Bellamy kisses her, wrapping his arms around her waist and smiling into it because she’s loud and ridiculous and a fucking smartass but he’s in love with her. It takes her a second and then her arms are coming to rest on the nape of his neck, tugging at the few curls he’s got there, sliding into his hair and pushing him closer. She tastes like chocolate and mint and when she moans into his mouth, it’s all he can do to stop himself from collapsing right there.

Every inch of him is pressed up against every inch of her and kissing Clarke Griffin is like finding a stray piece of the universe right there on your doorstep. Kissing her is just like fighting with her and working with her – all in or all out.

They kiss until they get dizzy and only then does he move away, tucks a stray curl behind her ear and rests his forehead against hers, breathless and happy, happy, _happy_.

“You good?” she asks, nuzzling his cheek, hands sliding into his back pockets and just resting there. Like she can’t get enough of touching him, like she’s just as big of a dork as he’s always thought her to be.

Bellamy smiles, kisses her again because he could get high on the drug that is Clarke Griffin.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

This time, he really means it.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three times that Clarke Griffin called Bellamy Blake an asshole. 
> 
> And one time it was the other way around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I really love this fic and shoutout to Emvie who gave me the incentive to write more! Thank you! <3

i.

 

The thing with Clarke is that she _knows_ she’s intense.

It’s not new knowledge for her – she’s always been this way. When she was five, she was so determined to climb to the top of the monkey bars installed in Wells’ backyard and she did climb – but she also fell down and got a mild concussion.

So she really doesn’t need Bellamy Blake to tell her that, not with those furrowed brows of his and the high and mighty posture like he’s done an incredible good deed just by being her soccer team’s athletic trainer.

“I mean, you do know you’re too wound up, right?” he asks again, arms crossed, looking down at her. “And you do know that there are health benefits in _chilling the fuck out_?”

This could have been a very good day. She woke up, went to practice, and then apparently she fucked up by nearly spraining an ankle but still limp-running her way to scoring a goal.

But Bellamy Blake exists and no matter how much Clarke likes his sister Octavia, he’s still an insufferable asshole. Has been since she showed up for practice that first time (which ended up with her spraying the hell out of him with her water bottle).

So she tells him just as much.

“You’re such an asshole, Blake.”

He’s laughing as she walks away from the field and Clarke can’t for the life of her understand why she’s bothered by what he says so much.

 

 

ii.

 

Octavia and Clarke are young and they are on top of the world when they dance on the counter in a dingy bar downtown. It’s their night off after a victory and they deserve this, they _totally_ deserve this.

“Yeah, another! Come on!”

Everything is a mess of blurry lights and the precise cut of Octavia’s jaw when she turns towards Clarke, grabs her by the hand and slides a glass full of clear liquid her way.

“What’s that?”

“Vodka _and_ tequila!”

In that moment, it sounds like a good idea.

Two hours later, it’s the shittiest one yet as Clarke hugs the Blakes’ toilet bowl and empties the contents of her stomach in the least charming possible way. Bellamy is holding her hair and has an arm around her waist, her body going limp, and he’s laughing.

Because _of course_ he is.

“Vodka and tequila, wow. That’s your best idea so far, Princess.”

“Octavia’s,” she manages to correct him in a croaky voice. The tiles are so cold, they feel like heaven on her heated skin.

“I know. But you didn’t have to go along with it.”

Fucking Blakes and their high tolerance. Clarke is such a lightweight and that should probably mean she should stop going so hard but Bellamy’s supposed to understand this – he’s the one who berated her for her intensity, after all.

“Asshole.”

“Princess.”

Another heave.

“Come on, just shut up and let go,” he says in the end, running his fingers through her hair.

Half an hour later, her shoulder is pressed to his, their backs to the bathtub and if it wasn’t _Bellamy_ sitting next to her, Clarke would probably hold his hand.

But it is Bellamy and so he just grins. “Feeling better yet?”

“Yeah, much.”

There’s laughter in his eyes even when his lips press down into a single thin line. She sees a tiny scar above his upper lip, and maybe there’s more to him, maybe Clarke should be able to see more than just the annoying trainer and her friend’s older brother who’s always there to pick them up.

Maybe a part of her does.

But when he says, “So intense. Even about drinking,” all Clarke feels is annoyance.  

“We can’t all write stories about Greek myths in our spare time, Bellamy.”

When he laughs, it’s different. It’s like --  yes, Clarke has heard him laugh. He laughs when they score, he laughs when she flips him off, he laughs when she’s being her usual self.

But this laugh is something else and it feels like it’s making _her_ a better person for hearing it.

“Let’s get you to bed, huh, Griffin?”

His sheets smell like lavender and honey, and when he turns the light off, a quiet part of Clarke makes her want to beg him to stay.

 

 

iii.

 

Clarke is twenty when her father dies. She is twenty when she falls in love, and twenty one when her heart breaks in her hands.

Bellamy is looking at her and she doesn’t know why he’s doing this, doesn’t know when they went from licking milkshake off each other’s lips to standing in the kitchen of his apartment and being so damn _quiet_.

“It’s too much.”

Of course it’s too much, it’s the first thing he’s ever told her – that _she_ is too much. So she shouldn’t be surprised that this is what they can’t get over, this too muchness, this stupid, stupid thing that shouldn’t matter but it does.

“Yeah, alright,” she says but doesn’t mean it because her voice is breaking and she’s not alright, alright is so far from what she really feels. “Because me going away matters and because – “

“Not you going away, Clarke. You have to go away, I get that. I don’t want you stuck here, I’m happy for you.”

“So what, then, Bellamy? What?”

He averts his gaze, he does this sometimes, like the first time she’s seen him cry and that’s when she knew she loved him. You don’t want to rip the world apart for seeing tears on the face of someone you don’t care about.

And if she’s ever cared about anyone, she’s cared about Bellamy fucking Blake, twenty six and making another choice that’s gonna make both of them miserable but he’s got a hero complex and he’ll ditch her because he thinks it means to let her go and let her be happy.

“I’m not going to go anywhere and you know it. You are. You’ve got a career ahead of you and it feels shitty to stop you.”

“You’re not stopping me from doing anything, we’ve talked about this – “

“You’re lying.” He doesn’t mean it.

“You’re an asshole.” She doesn’t mean it.

But it’s said and they can’t take it back. Clarke leaves with the doors closing quietly behind her and for the next three years, she fools herself into thinking that it didn’t matter, that what she had with Bellamy had an expiration date.

So when she sees him in the ER on her rotation, sprained wrist and a little more wrinkles around his mouth, she knows he was right – she’s a fucking liar.

“Bellamy.”

There’s gonna be a crick in his neck, she knows, with how quickly he raises his head to look up at her, eyes wide and confused, shocked, a whole repertoire of emotions changing on his face. Clarke knows she must look the same.

And because she doesn’t hate him, not at all, even though her heart is breaking again and again in an endless loop of remembering all the good things, she says, “Come on, let’s see your wrist.”

He tells her about how he lives now, tells her about how he couldn’t get used to the shitty weather after California sun, didn’t know that she’s in New York now, too. It feels like he wants to say that he wouldn’t have come here if he knew but Clarke doesn’t call him out, just hums as she resets his wrist, listens to the stories of Octavia getting married.

When he doesn’t mention a girlfriend, well – she shouldn’t be happy but she is.

They don’t get to trying again until they run into each other in a grocery store and then it’s just funny, it feels like something is pushing them together.

“Dinner?” Bellamy asks in the end, hands stuck into his pockets, kicking a nonexistent pebble on the pristine store tiles.

Clarke smiles. “Dinner.”

It takes them ten dates, ten slow dates in which they don’t kiss, don’t even call it a date in the first place, and they take it easier than they should. Every time Clarke comes home and knows with a certainty that this time, this is gonna last. When Finn broke her heart, when Lexa left – she couldn’t imagine herself coming back home to them again.

With Bellamy, all she wants to do is come back home to him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I was an asshole and I’m sorry I drove you away. You’re not going to forgive me and I get that, but I still want to be your friend, if that’s – “

“I definitely don’t want to be your friend, Bellamy.”

The look on his face would be priceless if it didn’t physically hurt Clarke to see hope dying in his eyes.

“I want to be so much more.”

 

 

 

 

\+ i.

 

Seeing Bellamy under her does something to Clarke. It’s probably about his eyes, how wide they go and how dark his pupils blow up, lips parted just so, swollen and red from kissing. It makes her want to swallow him whole just to know that he’s hers, hers alone.

So she doesn’t know how to breathe next to him if it’s not breathing him in and she picks up the pace, makes his shitty rickety bed rock. When he throws his head back and bares his throat open to the stars, to her, Clarke feels like the whole universe is condensed to this moment of Bellamy Blake finally letting go.

“Jesus Christ, you’re something, Clarke,” he tells her afterward, their skin sticking, eyes droopy and tired.

“Intense. I think you meant _intense_.”

It takes him just a second to catch on and then he laughs, slaps away her sneaky wrist off his chest playfully.

“You’re such an asshole, that’s what you are.”

And yeah, Clarke can definitely live with that, as long as he’s near.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been a stranger for quite a while and I don't know if this means that I'll keep writing for this show, but I really wanted to write this part. I'm also very sorry for the angst but thank you all for reading! <3
> 
> If you liked it, you know the drill - kudos & comments are my lifeblood and you're all stars for leaving them. 
> 
> p. s. catch me @[marauders-groupie](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com).

**Author's Note:**

> That's it! Thank you all for reading and I hope you liked what you've read and if you did - please let me know. Kudos & comments are a great way to do that!
> 
> p.s. i'm also on [tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) where i cry about bellarke and pretend i'm funny. come hang out!


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